India seems to aim higher and think bigger in terms of its solar energy: from a set goal of 20 GW, the National Solar Mission grew its prospects to 33.4 GW all around the country, according to a report by Bridge to India.

The first step is to have 14.15 GW by 2018. By then, solar energy will have its own respected place on the national grid and more progress will have been made regarding the emissions level.

This will be possible due to the increased production of PV cells and the possibility of cheap imports from China. The final cost is estimated at around 40% less than what it is now.

As mentioned in my 2012 solar energy expectations yesterday, I think India’s got a good chance of shooting onto the solar power map this year. Following up on solar in India, a recent report by Bridge to India estimates that the country will have 33.4 gigawatts (GW) of solar power installed by 2022, far more than the 20 GW that are targeted by India’s National Solar Mission (NSM).

This is, clearly, not a definitive analysis showing that renewable energy such as wind and solar lower electricity rates (or make them increase more slowly), but it is a pretty darn good argument in their favor! And it is also a great piece to share with anyone who thinks renewable energy raises the cost of electricity. Add in the health benefits, job creation benefits, grid security benefits, and environmental benefits and my hunch is that any analysis on the matter would tell us, “Hey, it’s about time we put the Big money into renewable energy!” (More on wind costs and solar costs (.. and solar costs) you might want to take a look at.)

Google has abandoned its effort to come up with better flat mirrors and power plant designs for producing electricity from the sun’s heat, but it is releasing its research results so that others could perhaps use it to create commercially viable solutions.

It’s interesting to see what Google thought it could contribute to the field of solar thermal power plant engineering. The company’s research has focused on using smaller engines and light-weight mirrors with better controlling software — along with a tower outfitted with equipment to receive the concentrated sunlight and run a turbine and generator — to produce electricity. It ran into some technical challenges with engineering a suitable power tower before it decided to shelve the research project.

Off of England’s southern coast, the Isle of Wight is developing the largest sustainability project in the country. By 2020, “Eco Island” will become a net exporter of energy, and residents will see their electricity bills drop by 50%. The island will become a precedent for renewable energy and sustainability practices, and an example of Prime Minister David Cameron’s “Big Society” concept for the UK.

Google Makes a Mistake

As you can see from the linked stories on the left of this article, Google is quite a big proponent of renewable energy. They have made all kinds of investments in wind, solar, geothermal, etc. Some are to generate clean energy for their own needs, others are more akin to financing deals to help big wind and solar farms get built. In any case, it is very commendable work and if more big corporations had the long-term vision of Google, the world would definitely be in better shape.

The World Bank approved $297 million in loans to Morocco to support construction and operation of Morocco’s 500-megawatt (MW) Ouarzazate Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plant, one of several large scale solar power projects in various stages of planning or development across the solar energy rich Middle East-North Africa region.

Upon completion, the Ouarzazate parabolic trough CSP plant would be one of the largest CSP plants in the world. A group of seven international lenders has committed $1.435 billion dollars to build and develop the project. Ouarzazate is seen as a key milestone for Morocco’s national Solar Power Plan, which was launched in 2009 with the goal of deploying 2000 MW of solar power generation capacity by 2020.

Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic energy, and when they’re picked up by traditional metallic antennas, the electrons that are generated can be converted into an electrical current. Given that optical waves are also a type of electromagnetic energy, a team of scientists from Tel Aviv University wondered if these could also be converted into electricity, via an antenna. It turns out that they can – if the antenna is very, very short. These “nanoantennas” could replace the silicon semiconductors in special solar panels, which could harvest more energy from a wider spectrum of sunlight than is currently possible.

A former Nazi bunker located in the Wilhelmsburg district of Hamburg, Germany is about to get full-scale makeover. The building, which sorta looks like a giant LEGO, is set to become Europe’s largest renewable energy power plant.

When it’s all said and done, the power plant will supply 3,000 homes with heating and 1,000 of those with electricity, cutting 6,600 tons of CO2 per year.

Come 2012, this nine story structure (called a Flaktürme in German) will boast a 110 kWh rooftop photovoltaic system and a south-facing 0.6 GWh solar-thermal unit. And the building’s interior is being reserved for even further renewable expansion. It will include both a 10.5 GWh woodchip combined heat and power plant and a 3.7 GWh biomethane plant powered by a nearby industrial plant, for example. Waste heat will also be stored. That sounds like a lot but this building could house around 80 single family homes. It is that big.

I just returned from the Solar Power International (SPI) show, an annual event for the solar industry, and there were a few things I kept hearing over and over.

One was: “It’s simple: People can live better with solar.” The second was: “The price of electricity will rise over the next decade.”

Over the last 40 years, Americans have been fortunate to have largely consistent electric rates. But as utility providers need to replace aging systems and fuel costs rise, experts predict that homeowners will soon need to pay more for electricity.